The “Damn, Gina.” Cheeseburger Casserole…A recipe as a real long story.
This recipe is cobbled together from memory, scribbled notes and what’s in the recycling bin as evidence in the kitchen.
Figure out which Supermarket has Grands Jr. Flaky Biscuits (Butter Flavor) on sale. They can cost $4-5 a tube, but we got the two tubes we needed on sale at Pathmark in a $10 for 10 special they were running. These are important because you can pull the layers apart and stretch them as if you were using something classy like phyllo dough. While with the cold/dairy stuff grab 2 bags of Sargento Mexican Cheese Blend. This worked because it wasn’t pre-seasoned with a hint of taco spices like some of the other brands.
Now time for vegetables. Get thee to the pickle aisle and get a jar of the pickles that are sliced length wise for sandwiches, but make sure they aren’t sweet pickles. Grab a large yellow onion and then head to the pasta sauce and get a can of Tomato PASTE. Not diced, sauce or jarred. The sad oft neglected can of unflavored paste.
While in the sauce aisle grab a jar of Ragu Double Cheddar Sauce (let the electric orange hue find your eye, you can’t miss it) if you are feeling particularly baller you can do like we did and also add a half jar of quality Alfredo sauce as well.
Meat. We went for a 80% Ground Beef situation (told you I don’t really cook) and cooked it down and drained the fat out of love and respect for everyone eating it. The final few ingredients you may have in your home…grab the Spicy Yellow (or Brown) Mustard, Horseradish, Black Pepper, Seasoned Salt (Goya Adobo or Badia Adobo), a clove of garlic and a lime.
As far as cooking all of this, it’s basically where the free styling came into play. There aren’t exact measurements because we basically made it to serve 40+. When it comes to size use the basics to make it as big as you want and season to taste. I do however have some pointers and how we layered it.
- Drain that jar of pickles…You can toss the juice (or do picklebacks, damn I should have suggested picklebacks) and set the pickles to “dry” while you get the rest of the dish prepped.
- “White Castle” the onion. Dice it finely into little squares. Then heat a pan, spray with some olive oil. Dump them in over a medium/low heat and walk away for a few mins…Turn then and repeat…after about ten mins lower the heat, sprinkle with a bit of salt and let them stay warm till ready to layer.
- Season the beef with the Seasoning Salt, Mustard, Horseradish, Black Pepper and a half a lime squeezed over the whole affair..Cook until medium then drain. In a separate small saucepan heat the tomato paste. Add a ⅓ can of water and sprinkle of salt.
- In a saucepan over low heat add your Cheddar and Alfredo sauce. Mix in One Bag of the Cheese…keep a bit of an eye on it on the flame. Plastic Burns.
- Pop open your biscuits and spray your pan with Olive Oil or nonstick spray. Pull apart the biscuits and layer the bottom of the pan so all you see is biscuit. This is the only layer where this is important. You don’t have to dump t all in…Thin layers are best. get in there and break the meat up a bit so people aren’t getting hunks of it at once. Evenly layer the onions and sauces as well.
After that the layering order is: Biscuit, Cheese Sauce, Meat, Onion, Tomato Sauce. repeat until you fill you pan, but try and end on a biscuit layer. Then lay out your pickles and cover with the remaining cheese…Save a biscuit and roll those layers into little buns and stud the top of the casserole with them. Bonus points if you happen to have Sesame Seeds to top them with.Cook until done ( you have a brown top and a knife comes out sans raw biscuit goo, about 25 mins or so)
